25 years ago...

ARTISTS DEFY
UNAMERICANS

NEW YORK — A four-day
witchhunt hearing of the U.S.
House of UnAmerican Activities
Committee into the theatre
folded up in dismal failure last
week.

Of 25 brought to the stand to
face quizzing on their political
ideas, only one bowed the knee
to what most of the actors and
actresses called an “inquisition”.
Twenty-two witnesses spoke up
defiantly against the committee's

robing, citing sections of the

Bs. Constitution in their de-
fence.

The Tribune,

August 29, 1955

FLASHBACKS FROM
THE COMMUNIST PRESS

50 years ago...

JOBLESS ORGANIZE

TORONTO — The first of a
series of meetings was held last
week at the Workers’ Centre
under the auspices of the Un-
employed Association of Toron-
to. The Hall was filled by the
workers who came to listen to
the program of the Association.

Leslie Morris spoke on the ex-
periences of the Winnipeg un-
employed movement. Charlie
Marriott, active in Montreal un-
employed work and Harvey
Jackson, local organizer of the
unemployed association dealt
with the problems of the To-
ronto organization.
; The Worker,
August 30, 1930

Profiteer of the week:

to go on.

Ever notice how sensitive big corporations
are? They feel hurt if the government doesn’t
respond to their need for incentives — like
handouts. Take Pancanadian Petroleum Ltd.,
Calgary, in the six months ended June 30 they
had an after-tax bonanza of $119,812,000, but
haven't said whether that’s enough incentive

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

RIBUNI

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT.5, 1980—Page 4

TAD ORICAVIE
COMIMIEINT

Unite in fight for jobs

Plant closures and layoffs which have
killed tens of thousands of Canadian
jobs and threaten countless more, call
for a tough and united fightback by all
labor.

That fightback has begun; workers
and their unions have demanded that
the government take over plants whose
U.S. bosses decide arbitrarily to close
them. The time-honored sit-in has been
used to protest the dirty deals typical of
such corporations.

That's the kind of spirit this Labor
Day 1980 needs to applaud and build
on.
The offensive against labor by the
ruling class, by corporations and the

‘governments they manipulate, is an

effort to force workers to pay the cost of
the system’s crisis, through lost jobs,
plunging living standards, cutbacks and
ultimately in war — to protect the
profits and the empires of the multi-
nationals. It’s noticeable that the same
corporate media and big business
governments who attack labor, attack
the forces for peace and detente. ;

Fighting back is part of labor’s inheri-
tance. The strike movement, the battle
against strike-breaking and _ strike-

breaking legislation, against boss re-

tribution handed out to strike leaders,
all are marked today by increasing labor
unity. Standing together, workers have
won out over the bosses and thelr
government flunkeys.

In the alarming trend to more and
more layoffs and plant closures, labor

unity is just as vital. The demand, pu
ay-

Canada back to work — jobs not
offs, is one that challenges ruling-class
policies, and demands policies to serve
the working people. :

The call has often been heard 1
labor’s ranks
energy and other resources, (many of
them owned in the USA), of monsters
like Bell, CPR and Inco, of U.S.
monopolies living off Canada and
Canadian workers to our detriment
These demands of labor are at the samé
time patriotic demands, favoring Cana-
dian independent development. They
require a united voice, united actions.

Ruling-class determination to make
the workers pay for the system’s crisis,
challenges labor on this Labor Day, to
struggle to unite, and unite to struggle,
to replace the disastrous policies 0
monopoly capitalism.

Threat from Imperial Oil

It’s getting a little tiresome listening to

corporations crying. They extort hand-
outs from big business government,
otherwise they lose their incentive and
won't produce. In the case of the oil
monopolies, without guarantees of fat
profits, they refuse to do further explo-
ration.
_ Now Imperial Oil appears to have
turned to blackmail. It is threatening to
drop the $8-billion oil sands project
unless the federal and Alberta govern-
ments reach suitable price decisions —
on Imperial Oil’s timetable.

Imperial Oil is one of the big seven
foreign-owned petroleum corporations
in Canada, through whose hands go
42% of all oil produced here. Together
they were able, last year to send out of
Canada $313-million in dividends
alone. And what Imperial is doing now
is threatening to ship a whole lot more
of its assets, created out of Canadian
resources and Canadian labor, to lower

cost areas where it can make a faster —

buck.
Apparently such antics are acceptable
to governments like those of Alberta
and Saskatchewan, who find deals with
the multi-nationals to their liking, but
reject federal government taxation “in-
terference”. What the federal govern-
ment should be criticized for is its
failure to assign greater responsibilities

to Petrocan, in which it holds a share.

Why should foreign-owned multi-
nationals be the ones to accumulate
billions of dollars out of resources which
rightfully belong to the Canadian
people? :

As the Canadian Labor Congress said
at its Winnipeg convention: “Petro-
Canada must not only be maintained in
its present form, it should be expanded

into other areas of the oil industry (e.g:
refining and retailing) ...”

Or as the Communist Party has often
said: The functions of Petro-Canada
should be expanded, and tro-
chemical industries built wherever
energy resources are found in abun-
dance.

Canada’s oil sands, a crucial factor
in Canada’s independent development
should not be in the hands of for-
eign-owned corporations. |

It’s time these parasitic monopolies |

were put under social ownership and
democratic control to function on the
basis of what is best for Canada and
Canadians instead of what is best for
maximum corporate profits.

Sniper for US.

If Canada’s external affairs minister,
Mark MacGuigan were a paid mes-
senger boy for the U.S. state depart-
ment he couldn’t do a better job than he
does of heralding U.S. policy. He has
already begun sniping at the Madrid
conference three months in advance.

The Madrid meeting is a follow-up

on the Helsinki Conference on Security
and Co-operation in Europe, held in
1975.

The chief weapon of the USA and its
apprentices is anti-Soviet slander. In

this vein MacGuigan said that if

Washington failed in its disruption “I
think that one of the things we should
consider ... is withdrawing from the
conference if there’s no possibility of
success or even progress.”

Canada deserves better than an echo
of Washington at the November Madrid

~ conference.

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